


Will that be all?

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Banter, Complicated Relationships, Dancing, Feel-good, Gen, Havelock Vetinari POV, Oblivious, One-Sided Attraction, Samuel Vimes POV, Teasing, not angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 06:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17177675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Due to an unfortunate happenstance of events, Vimes is stuck at this bloody ball for at least another twenty-eight minutes. When the Patrician comes forward, of course, Vimes has a chance to distract himself, and to make a bit of a spectacle.“Am I to understand, Vimes,” Vetinari says in a poisonous whisper, the best the Assassins’ Guild knows how to train into a man, “that you are teasing me?”“Don’t reckon it’s up to me to decide what you understand or don’t understand, lord.”





	Will that be all?

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing Discworld fic! This one was a practice run so that I can work on some Discworld giftfic for the fandom_stocking - any feedback would be super appreciated!

At the behest of Lady Winesta Sexton, there is a great ball, and Samuel Vimes hates it. There is a peculiarity to the Ankh-Morpork ball that makes it even more unbearable than anything Vimes could imagine in his wildest dreams. It’s a mix of a few factors, really. The tinkling nature of the music on the air, which contains no personality at all and somehow manages to echo off the ceilings and walls, ringing around the room and insinuating itself inside one’s skull. Even when Vimes finally leaves, he knows the waltzes and little ditties are going to be stuck in his head for the next few weeks, and he wouldn’t _mind_ , if they were only any good.

Which they are not.

The average composition of the Ankh-Morpork musician comes somewhere between “brain-numbingly bland” and “desperately commercial,” meaning that it clings long after you’ve hoped to have forgotten it.

And what’s worse is that the Lady Sybil Vimes, née Ramkin, has fallen ill. Vimes does not doubt that she is ill, either – Sybil is not the sort to let Vimes wander into some awful soirée and _not_ be there to make it bearable. Unfortunately, by the time the message of Sybil’s abrupt flu and confinement to bed with one of the ridiculous (and yet specially designed) bowls that is made especially for the purpose of vomiting in it (the rich and powerful of Ankh-Morpork believing in specialised crockery for every purpose imaginable in two to three colours, so that they have something to put in the dozens of storage closets that make a manor a home), Vimes had already arrived, and been announced.

Vimes isn’t one for rules, or for social etiquette, or appearing in public except for in his official capacity as a watchman (albeit, Vimes thinks with a sense of vague disgust, a _Commander)_ , but once you’re _announced_ , you need to stay for at least an hour, unless you are called urgently away.

Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, no one seems willing to call him urgently away on anything.

Captain Carrot had assured him, in his brightest tone, that he would handle absolutely everything, and unfortunately, Captain Carrot is a man of his word. Unfortunately…

Noting a curious gap in the waves of ridiculously dressed lords and ladies milling around the ballroom, the majority of them absently swaying from side to side or fluttering fans or swinging canes, Vimes arches one eyebrow. A natural parting occurs in the crowd, and Vimes beholds the slow moving figure of the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. His ebony cane held neatly at his side, he moves delicately through the crowd, seemingly incognizant of the way that everybody naturally gives him a gap of around six feet on each side.

“Good evening,” Vetinari says mildly, and Vimes gives him a dutiful salute as he comes closer. Unlike the average member of the aristocracy, Vimes does not especially fear Vetinari: to do that would amount to about the same lot of good as being afraid of the moon, or the sun. You can be frightened of it if you like, but it isn’t going to go anywhere, and if it wants to harm anyone, it probably won’t go to the bother of harming you specifically.

And if it does?

Well. It’s not as if you can do anything about it. What’s the point in being frightened?

“Is it?” Vimes asks, unenthusiastically.

“I notice the Lady Sybil is absent,” Vetinari says, with a sort of wooden sympathy. His expression is entirely neutral, displaying its usual blank-eyed stare that would make most people flinch, fluster, or perhaps break out in a flopsweat. There are some on the Disc that might retort to this stare with a cheery grin that might annoy Vetinari; others might respond with blank incomprehension; Vimes’ riposte – well-practised after all his years of service – is something rather different.

Vimes’ method is to retain an expression of dutiful service, the lips pursed, the eyes staring forward and not crossing the gaze of the Patrician’s own, his fingernails still touching against his forehead in silent salute.

“Yessir,” Vimes says.

“Put your hand down, Vimes,” Vetinari says, in a tone of some boredom.

“Yessir,” Vimes assents, and he does, his hands settling behind his back. He’s still wearing his Commander’s uniform, although he had been convinced to exchange his cardboard boots for some “handsome” ones. “She’s caught ill.”

“What a shame.” With the familiar stiffness to one side, Vetinari moves to stand beside Vimes, so that the two of them are shoulder to shoulder. Vetinari stands slightly closer to Vimes than is strictly necessary, and Vimes can feel the dusty, stiff fabric of his sleeve against the bare patch of arm where his breastplate gives way before his gauntlet begins. It’s summer in Ankh-Morpork, a dreadful, sticky heat lingering on every street, and causing the river to concentrate its smell on the air at large instead of just the air beside the river. This means that Vimes is even less inclined to wear the full livery of his poshed up uniform than usual, as it’s simply too hot to bear.

Vimes is aware of the looks being sent their way.

Ordinarily, Vimes is the subject of a great many looks – these looks ordinarily happen along the lines of, “he doesn’t belong here, the jumped-up little oik,” and such sentiments as that – these are sentiments, in fact, that Vimes would agree with. He _does not_ belong here. He is of the opinion that _nobody_ belongs here. This is nonsense.

But the fact of the Patrician standing beside him means that many of these looks stop in their tracks, and are abruptly softened (or, more accurately, strangled) on the faces of those delivering them. It’s one thing to send a withering look to Sir Samuel Vimes, who should not be here anyway, and who couldn’t give a toss who looks at him, withering or no, but—

_Lord Vetinari?_

Well.

That’s a very different matter.

“You don’t sway to the music,” Vetinari says mildly.

“This ain’t music,” Vimes scoffs.

“Isn’t it?” Vetinari asks, “Curious that you should say so, Vimes. It meets many of the descriptors of music. Instruments, a rhythm, chords—”

“It’s like,” Vimes starts, wrinkling his nose and crossing his arms tightly over his chest, “ _clay_. It’s cheap, easy to reproduce, and it doesn’t matter that it looks _nice_ for five minutes, because it’s sticky and it clings to your boots.” Vimes glances at Vetinari, and he sees Vetinari’s thin lips twitch slightly into a smirk.

“I see,” Vetinari says. “You dislike _popular_ music.”

“Don’t see the point to it.”

“There is no _point_ to it, Vimes. One hears it, one listens to it while it is playing, perhaps one dances, and then one goes home.”

“What time is it?” Vimes asks.

“ _Bingly-bingly-bong!”_ comes the resulting chime from his pocket, and Vimes feels his mouth twist into a scowl. “ _It is precisely about half seven!”_

“Can I have an _actually_ precise figure, if you please?” Vimes demands. There is a sort of stiff growl in his voice that rings on the air, and the demon in the Dis-organiser hesitates for a second or two as it evaluates the potential of this growl being a threat.

“It’s thirty-six past the hour.”

“Right,” Vimes says. He has been here, then, for thirty-two minutes, meaning he has to pass another twenty-eight before he can leave without Sybil calling him impolite. It isn’t that Sybil will _mind_ , exactly. Sybil doesn’t like any of these people any more than he does, really, and she doesn’t want him to have to withstand it either, but—

She’ll be _pleased_ , if he sticks it out. She won’t say so, outright. But as much as Sybil will playfully call him impolite, if he goes home early, she’ll also be _delighted_ , if he is polite, for once. It’ll make her smile.

He likes those absent smiles of hers, when she is focusing on other things, and when it’s something Sam’s done. She does it like she doesn’t know she’s smiling, her expression faraway and focused on other things, and it’s—

It’s lovely, is what it is. She’s lovely.

“You like it when I piss ‘em off, don’t you?” Vimes asks. His voice is quiet, meant for Vetinari’s ears – the benefit of a room like this, with this tinkling music and the chatter of all these toffs, is that you can be in full view of everybody, and still say what you like.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean,” Vetinari replies, his tones smooth and oily. “Nothing you do, Vimes, gives me pleasure one way or the other.”

Vimes feels his lips shift into a slight smile.

“As intended then, sir,” he says cheerfully. A little while ago, he’d been looking back on the times where he’d been a little bit more reliant on the bottle, and missing it – he’d wanted for a drink, and had been glancing at the trays of champagne as they’d passed him by, but Vetinari…

In a completely different way to Vimes, _Vetinari_ is seemingly incapable of getting drunk.

“What’s this music for then, my lord?” Vimes asks.

“I believe I told you, Vimes.”

“Oh, I see,” Vimes says. “Dancing.”

“Quite.”

“You ain’t dancing, lord.”

“I am not.”

“You ain’t even swaying.”

“No.”

“’Cause you’re too tall, is it?” Vetinari’s blank expression—

It would be unfair to call it a falter. If we are to use the terms of the music Lord Vetinari is so fond of, we might say that a falter lasts too long: it would need to last at least a beat. The shift in Lord Vetinari’s expression is so marginal that it does not even amount to a quarter of a beat, so we can’t call it a _falter_.

Vetinari’s blank expression, instead, _flickers_.

A light seems to shift in his icy blue eyes, so small a change as to scarcely be noticed, and then he gives Vimes a sideways glance that Vimes has seen before. This glance communicates a great deal of information in one easy shift of the heavy eyelids and the dark eyebrows, in the glacier-cold colour of the eyes: it says, _Explain. Explain now. Explain with expedience. And maybe, all will go well for you_.

“Well,” Vimes says, conversationally. “It’d look silly, if you were to sway, wouldn’t it? You could tap your foot, maybe, or flick your nail against your cane, but if you were to sway, well. You’re just too tall, and too thin. You’d look like some Uberwaldian tree in a low wind.”

A pause spans between them.

The rest of the ball continues around them, the music irritatingly pleasant (Vimes can just feel it needling its way into his ears, to worm about as much as it pleases over the coming weeks and rot his concentration), the people dancing. Ugly men dance with ridiculous women; ugly women dance with ridiculous men. One couple that is equally ugly and equally ridiculous are better at dancing than everybody else, and Vimes decides he likes them, based on the fact that Lord Rust is giving them both a disgusted stare, meaning there must be something about them worth liking.

“Am I to understand, Vimes,” Vetinari says in a poisonous whisper, the best the Assassins’ Guild knows how to train into a man, “that you are _teasing_ me?”

“Don’t reckon it’s up to me to decide what you understand or don’t understand, lord.”

A beat passes (not a falter, you understand), and Vetinari laughs, and for a second, the entire room freezes.

The music stutters, and stops: dancers stop dancing with one another, and people turn to look at their Patrician as he chuckles quietly, his teeth showing, his head leaning forward slightly. “Very droll, Vimes,” he finally rumbles out, and at a sudden glare, the music starts back up with a hurried stumbling over notes and scrambling for instruments. “Do you _know_ how to dance?”

“’Course, sir. Sybil insisted.”

“I see.” There’s a measure of doubt in Vetinari’s voice, and Vimes frowns at him, looking slightly up at Vetinari’s expression, which reveals nothing at all, but… Well, Vimes _can_ dance. He’s got a sense of rhythm, and he knows how to hold himself at least as well as any of these toffs.

The thing is, sometimes, Vimes does things just to cause a spectacle. It’s because, at heart, he’s an angry man, and the fact of the matter is that anger can only get you so far with truly upsetting some people – you can yell until you’re blue in the face at one of these nasty, gold-plated bastards, and they’ll just laugh. But a _spectacle?_ Well, that sort of thing needles right into the heart of these ugly people and rubs sparks together, makes them pop and shudder and make indignant noises. Indignation is the weakness of any lord or lady – when you’re indignant (and that’s _truly_ indignant, not just putting on a show of indignation for the sake of it), it’s hard to remain superior. It rips the rug out from under you, in that respect.

“Can you dance, lord?”

“Yes,” Vetinari says, in the mild tone of someone making small talk, but not exactly clear on the path it’s taking him on.

“Nah. Bet you a penny you can’t.” Vetinari glances at him again.

“I beg your pardon, Vimes?”

“Bet you a penny, sir. Legs’re too long: bet you can’t dance a beat.”

Vetinari stares at Vimes, uncomprehendingly, and then his icy-cold gaze flickers downward, to Vimes’ hand, which is outstretched, palm up. The golden shine of his gauntlets catches the ridiculous candlelight. Vetinari blinks.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Vimes,” he snaps out scoldingly, and Vimes holds his position for just a second longer than another man might. “Take those gauntlets off. Drumknott.” The last is added in a sort of automatic way, and Drumknott materialises out of the air beside Vimes with astonishing alacrity.

“Were you there this whole time?” Vimes asks, and Drumknott arches his eyebrows at him, his hands out. Vimes sets each of his gauntlets down on Drumknott’s soft palms with one quiet clank and then a second, and he looks to Vetinari, raising his eyebrows in expectation.

Vetinari’s hand is inhumanly cold in Vimes’, but his grip is firm, and Vimes moves faster than Vetinari does: his other hand settles on the firm, flat rivet of Vetinari’s hip, gripping loosely at the black cloth. Something shifts in Vetinari’s expression, a kind of brightening, and Vimes thinks – or he imagines, more accurately, because he can’t possibly actually be _seeing_ this – Vetinari’s breath stutters just slightly as his hand settles on Vimes’ shoulder.

Sybil would love this, and Vimes wishes she was here to see it. Gods, Sybil will be _delighted_ , just hearing about it.

“I’ll lead, shall I?” Vimes asks.

“For once,” Vetinari replies, and Vimes takes the first step.

Dancing with the Patrician is not like dancing with Sybil. For one, Sybil is a good deal bigger than Vetinari – they’re about the same height (taller than Vimes), true enough, but Sybil is a stout woman with a prominent chest, and when she and Vimes dance chest-to-chest, they dance _chest-to-chest_. You could fit Vetinari’s biography, sideways, between his and Vetinari’s chests right now. For two, Vetinari’s movements are—

Look.

The moves are correct. Vimes couldn’t argue with that. The bastard has perfect rhythm (and probably perfect pitch and all), and his movements are completely in time with the music, but there’s a sort of clockwork element to them, a little _too_ perfect. His body is held stiffly, his steps quiet against the ballroom floor, and unlike Sybil’s body, which moves with the music, her bosom shifting, her hips swaying, her frame seeming to _sing_ , Vetinari just moves.

It still works. Vimes can’t deny that it still works, and that there’s something hypnotising about the ramrod straightness of Vetinari’s spine as they take themselves through the one-two-three, about the smirk on his face, about his bone-dry hands under Vimes’, but—

It’s not Sybil.

Then again, if Vetinari _did_ manage to move like Sybil, somehow, Vimes supposes that’d be more unsettling.

They don’t speak, as they dance. He and Sybil usually do, her chattering away about what the dragons need this week, or him saying which lords and ladies in the room he dislikes the most, and Sybil patiently agreeing or disagreeing, depending on which of them likes dragons. He and Vetinari don’t speak: instead, they retain a perfect rhythm, dancing one way and then dancing the other, Vetinari seemingly content not to lead, and it’s—

It’s almost _fun_.

The music suddenly doesn’t seem quite so grating.  

People are staring, but that doesn’t matter – Vimes expected them to stare, and to be indignant, and the best thing about the indignation is that it’ll be like these people’s withering looks. In the face of the Patrician, they have nowhere to go. No one is going to tell _Lord Vetinari_ that he can’t dance with the Watch Commander, if he wants to, no matter that the Watch Commander isn’t a real gentleman, or that the Watch Commander is a man, or that the Watch Commander is—

Well.

Sam Vimes.

“Think anyone’s gonna cut in?” Vimes asks when he feels his feet getting a bit tired in his disgustingly expensive boots. Vetinari, almost unsettlingly, has had a slight smile on his face the entire ten or fifteen minutes, and now, it only deepens.

“I don’t think they’d dare,” he says, with no small amount of fascination, and he neatly releases Vimes’ hand, letting him step away. They bow to one another, Vimes a bit deeper than Vetinari, and then Vimes glances at the big clock on the wall.

It’s a quarter past eight.

“You will be taking your leave, then, Commander Vimes?”

“Yessir,” Vimes says brightly, with an easy salute. “Good evening, sir!”

“Is it?” Vetinari replies smoothly, and Vimes brings a cigar to his mouth as he filters through the crowd, to make his way home.

It doesn’t matter that Sybil’s taken ill – he’ll sit up with her anyway, rub her back, brush her hair before bed… It’s a rare morning off tomorrow, as he’d expected for them to be up late, and Sybil will be glad to hear all about Vetinari, and about Vimes pissing off the toffs. Hopefully, she’ll feel better soon.

This’ll distract her, anyway. This’ll make her smile.

Gods, he loves that smile.

♕  ♕  ♕

Standing in an anteroom, Vetinari allows his thumb to stray over the delicate skin at his wrist, pressing tightly to the pulse point. Ordinarily, his heart beats in a slow and orderly manner, even in times of great crisis, but now, it has taken up the slightest speed, a disruption to its regular beat.

Vetinari’s mouth is slightly dry, and he feels the warmth in the smile he does not bother to force from his mouth in the privacy of the little room.

“Another glass of water, my lord?” Drumknott asks, sounding faraway.

“Please,” Vetinari says, and he hears the door open and click shut behind him.

Vimes is married, of course – it wouldn’t surprise Vetinari if Vimes had never even spared a thought to the idea of _any_ man wanting another man, let alone the idea of a man wanting him, or wanting a man himself, but that isn’t the point, is it? Vetinari is a man of singular focus – he lacks the time for dalliances with young men, or even men his own age, nor the real inclination to _want_ time to pursue such things, but that isn’t the point either.

The point is the ridiculous smile tugging at Vetinari’s lips, and the speed of his pulse that even now is evening out, smoothing to a fine, even pace.

“Up the budget for the Watch this year,” he says cleanly, when Drumknott returns with his water.

“An extra fifty dollars, my lord?” Drumknott asks.

“That should do it,” Vetinari says, inclining his head before taking a sip of his water.

“A very bold man, that Sir Vimes,” Drumknott says. Vetinari does not believe he imagines the slightly dreamy tone to his voice. “But now, that Captain Carrot…” Drumknott trails off, his eyebrows raised in inward, appraising thought, and then he coughs delicately against his hand, seeming to remember himself. “Will that be all, my lord?”

“Yes,” Vetinari says, drawing his thumb away from his wrist, and putting his sleeve back. “That will be all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up [on Dreamwidth](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/2287.html). Requests always open. I run a [Discworld Comm](https://onthedisc.dreamwidth.org/), and there's also [a Discord.](https://discord.gg/b8Z3ThH)


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